It sounded rather hard to the young man as he rose from his seat to depart. All he wanted was fair play, open dealing; and it seemed that he could not get it.
"My uncle Peter, with whom I have just been, said a thing that I did not like," he stayed to remark; "it rather startled me. I presume--I should think--that he is a man of strict veracity?"
"Mr. Peter Castlemaine? Undoubtedly."
"Well, sir, what he said was this. That were I to spend my best years and energies in the search after information, I should be no wiser at the end than I am now."
"That I believe to be extremely probable," cordially assented the lawyer.
"But do you see the position in which it would leave me? Years and years!--and I am not to be satisfied one way or the other?"
The attorney froze again. "Ah, yes; true."
"Well, sir, I will say good-day to you, for it seems that I can do no good by staying, and I must not take up your time for nothing. I only wish you had been at liberty to advise me."
Mr. Knivett made some civil rejoinder about wishing that he had been. So they parted, and the young man found himself in the street again. Until now it had been one of the brightest of days; but during this short interview at the lawyer's, the weather seemed to have changed. The skies, as Anthony Castlemaine looked up, were now dull and threatening. The clouds had lowered. He buttoned his warm coat about him, and began his walk back to Greylands.
"Je crois que nous aurons de la neige," he said, in the familiar language to which he was most accustomed, "et je n'ai pas de parapluie. N'importe; je marcherai vite."